How an insight-led strategy helped a loyalty technology company strengthen its market position, increase brand visibility, support sales and validate new growth opportunities
Founded in 1999, iSeatz was born as a restaurant reservation platform. Over time, the company evolved its technology to provide travel companies with a novel way to generate revenue through non-core offerings and later developed a powerful loyalty platform, anticipating early on the demand for more technology-enabled travel and lifestyle experiences. Its first breakthrough came through a strategic partnership with Delta Air Lines, where it became the first platform to integrate third-party ancillary services directly into the booking path. That capability set a new standard for loyalty engagement and positioned iSeatz as a go-to technology partner for travel and financial services brands. Today, the company supports programs for American Express Travel, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Qantas Airlines, and many others, powering billions of dollars in transactions and loyalty redemptions annually.
Throughout its history, iSeatz has evolved its offering to meet the changing demands of loyalty programs and their members. Most recently, it launched the LXP, designed to help brands deliver more connected, personalized rewards experiences across every customer touchpoint.
But even the strongest product needs a sharp strategy behind it. To grow its influence and accelerate results, iSeatz needed clearer positioning, data-backed insights, and greater visibility to fuel sales, marketing, and go-to-market efforts.
By 2022, iSeatz had spent more than two decades powering loyalty and ancillary booking solutions to major travel and financial services brands, largely as a behind-the-scenes partner. But as the market grew more crowded and complex, the company saw an opportunity to step out of the background and establish a more visible and distinct presence.
Despite a strong product and client base, iSeatz lacked the external narrative and data-driven content necessary to fuel thought leadership and engage buyers more effectively. The company set out to reposition itself from a technology provider to a strategic partner, helping brands adapt to changing consumer and member expectations.
At the same time, iSeatz wanted to explore new verticals, including membership-based organizations, retailers, and other industries that would benefit from offering travel loyalty and lifestyle programs and rewards beyond the traditional air, hotel, and car rental model. This would require accurate data to validate assumptions, assess market demand and support buyer education. Internally, the sales team needed tools that could better communicate iSeatz’s value to unfamiliar prospects. As new features within the LXP platform rolled out over time, a focused research strategy was essential to inform and justify product development in line with changing market needs.
That’s where THINKINK came in.
“THINKINK’s research provided key insights into markets we were hoping to explore. Their research helped validate some of our assumptions, challenged others, and opened up new conversations internally and externally. We’ve used the findings to shape messaging, support product decisions, engage prospects in more informed ways, and elevate our visibility across the industry. Ultimately, we were able to invest more strategically in our growth thanks to the data and analysis we received.”
— Erin Groh, Head of Marketing at iSeatz
As a research and communications partner, THINKINK delivered a highly customized and strategic experience for iSeatz, far from the cookie-cutter approach of generic firms. We leveraged our deep industry knowledge and a network of vetted vendors to target precisely the right audiences and ask them the right questions. Working in tandem with the iSeatz team, we perfected each study to ensure accuracy and relevance with proven methodologies. Throughout the process, we closely managed each project, identifying and correcting anomalies as they arose.
Ultimately, we transformed that data into compelling, media-ready narratives and campaign executions—delivering not only results but also an elegant and collaborative client experience. At every stage, our insights were shaped into consultative, tailored analyses aligned with the client’s business, PR and sales strategies. The partnership provided iSeatz with the data and messaging foundation necessary to engage buyers and media, shape product strategy, and expand into new markets.
Each project aligned with a specific business goal. Some were developed to support thought leadership, educate buyers and increase media visibility, while others focused on go-to-market strategy, validating product-market fit and equipping the sales team. The research program included original surveys and desk research, all designed to surface insights into customer behaviors and preferences, as well as industry trends and emerging opportunities.
Among the most impactful was "The Tipping Point," a three-year proprietary research series that combined consumer and B2B insights to track loyalty perceptions across multiple industries. It quickly became central to iSeatz's thought leadership and buyer education strategy, identifying gaps between consumer expectations and loyalty program offerings.
Each year, the scope of the report expanded, introducing comparative year-on-year analysis to deepen strategic insights, adding seasonal travel data in one year to support timely PR outreach, and most recently, incorporating Canadian market data as the company looked to grow its presence there. Over time, The Tipping Point became the company’s most-downloaded asset, driving media engagement, executive visibility and product development by examining loyalty trends and changing business and consumer priorities.
As iSeatz expanded, we also developed vertical-specific content for key sectors such as financial services and hospitality. We enhanced existing reports on credit card rewards and hotel loyalty with updated desk research, original insights from The Tipping Point, and expanded industry analysis—elevating both the credibility and substance of the content. We also updated the design and presentation to improve usability and reinforce the company’s position as a strategic thought leader. These revised assets outperformed previous versions and supported more effective sales and marketing engagement.
“The Tipping Point became a reliable entry point for conversations with prospective clients. It gave us a way to frame industry challenges with data and opened doors to commercial discussions we hadn’t had before.”
— Erin Groh, Head of Marketing at iSeatz
Examples of our research-focused work:
To support expansion into new sectors, THINKINK led a series of studies to help iSeatz evaluate product-market fit, refine messaging and understand decision-maker priorities across these new markets. These included a report on loyalty in membership-based organizations, a dual B2B and B2C study on frequent flyer programs and a study on the feasibility of integrating travel booking into social media platforms. The latter combined consumer survey data with responses from senior decision-makers at three major technology companies to evaluate platform relevance and identify strategic use cases.
THINKINK’s research campaigns delivered measurable impacts across four key areas: media visibility, brand engagement, commercial traction and internal decision-making.
Our campaigns secured more than 130 earned placements in leading trade and business media outlets, including Credit Union Times, Forbes, Fortune, Hotel Executive, Insider Intelligence, Loyalty Magazine, MarketWatch, PhocusWire, Skift, Travolution, The Customer, The Financial Brand, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Wise Marketer, USA Today and Yahoo Finance, generating nearly one million estimated article views. Strategic press releases further extended this reach, with an estimated 1.7 million views from target media and online audiences. This sustained media presence positioned iSeatz as a leading voice in travel and lifestyle loyalty, building credibility among industry stakeholders and target audiences.
Research content became central to multi-channel marketing efforts. From nurture emails to LinkedIn ads and gated landing pages, each report served as a driver of engagement. The 2023 Tipping Point LinkedIn campaign alone generated over 160 ad clicks at a cost per acquisition of less than $102—a strong result for B2B marketing.
Across campaigns, hundreds of new contacts were acquired through content downloads, and repeat exposure via organic and paid social media efforts boosted awareness of the iSeatz brand among loyalty and travel decision-makers, while nurturing existing relationships through thoughtful, relevant content.
According to iSeatz, “The Tipping Point” series became the company’s most downloaded asset, with over 1,200 downloads to date, along with several thousand article views and engagement on LinkedIn. Other campaigns achieved equally strong results: the membership survey report generated over 450 downloads and more than 300 new contacts, while the desk research reports on credit card rewards and hotel loyalty attracted over 1,200 downloads and hundreds of qualified leads. These reports fueled campaigns targeting loyalty, partnership and customer experience leaders across multiple industries, acting as conversation starters that led directly into the sales funnel.
Internally, THINKINK’s research supported sales conversations, marketing hypotheses and product positioning strategy. Insights from the reports were used to support value statements in sales and marketing materials and helped guide messaging around emerging verticals. In several instances, research findings were used to validate assumptions that shaped campaign direction or confirmed gaps in loyalty offerings. THINKINK’s structured approach to research made it easy for iSeatz to integrate findings into its internal process and share relevant insights across teams.
Outcome of research focused deliverables:
THINKINK’s work turned research into results. By aligning data with business priorities and activating it through integrated content and campaigns, we helped iSeatz build credibility, engage buyers and support growth and critical decision-making.
Research is more than a marketing tool. When paired with the right strategy and execution, it becomes a driver of smart business decisions. With a partner like THINKINK, B2B brands can use research to clarify their position, support their teams and uncover new opportunities—just as iSeatz did.
Move beyond guesswork with PRESCIENT, our research services division. Book a complimentary consultation to discuss what informed insights could look like for your business.